Cost of Ductwork- New Construction

kisa_02February 11, 2007

We are building a 4900sf home, 1 1/2 story home with full walkout basement. The 1st floor and basement approx 3500sf.(each)2nd floor 1400sf. We just recv'd our first HVAC bid. The cost of the furnaces(2 carrier infinity + AC) seemed right in line with other posts I've read here.

I haven't found any posts talking about the cost of new constuction duct systems. Our quote to install a fully adjustable closed metal duct system (2 floors)with seperate zones is 30K. (this includes registers and grills, bath fans,& dryer vents) Does this price sound right?

We do plan on getting other bids, but this one kind of took us off guard. That price + the furnaces and a few other items is 20Kover what we thought was a good budget#. We want an excellent system, and like I said the prices for the furnaces was fair. Is some duckwork better than others?

Price of good duct work can be expensize. a good estimate is 20 dollars a foot and another 20 a foot to install. Where there are elbows make it 50 per elbow installed.
If you know the price of the equipment and the ducts. Still price 2 guys at 850 a day.........
Play stupid and ask how many days is this job going to take. Or how many man hours. If they tell you man hours then times that by 65 an hour.
Just to replace an existing heating system with minimal duck and a condenser and a coil can cost 4,500 and you want two of them so that's 9,000 right there plus the duct work.

geogehvacnj:thank you for trying to explain the costs. There probably is a considerable amount to be done, with the way the house is laid out. The quotes did not break down labor & material. I am going to request that, and ask how many feet of ductwork we need.

xracer: you state the quote is hiway robbery~ What do you think a fair charge would be? As I stated we requested a quote for a quality system. Our hvac system in our current house is THE WORST.. hot rooms, cold rooms, etc. We are buidling a custom home and want it done RIGHT. We were prepared for the costs to install 2 energy effiecient and quality furnaces & ac's. Just didn't realize the ductwork was going to cost more than the costs of the furnaces!